


Haunting

by LookIntoMyTelescope



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Apocalypse, American Horror Story: Coven
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/F, F/M, Fluff, It's a lil sad my dudes, Post Traumatic Stress, cordelia slowly realises she's bi bc of Misty's death, happy ending I promise, lots of grief
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-05 17:55:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16372301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LookIntoMyTelescope/pseuds/LookIntoMyTelescope
Summary: After the death of Misty Day, Cordelia just can't seem to get her out of her mind.





	1. "Her Time Is Up"

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry this is short, I'm tired and I'll write more soon.  
> The title comes from Halsey's song Haunting.  
> This isn't gonna be too angsty for long my dudes, Ryan Murphy has tortured us long enough.

The last time Cordelia had seen Misty, she was cradling her in her arms, tears pricking her unseeing eyes as she whispered counterspells in a feeble, last-minute attempt to bring back the beloved swamp witch. As sand continued to empty from the massive hourglass, Cordelia acquiesced to burying her face in the unconscious witch’s hair, pleading her to come back as she broke down in sobs, her shoulders heaving slightly with the weight of her anxiety. Cordelia could almost hear the second that Misty Day left this mortal plane. The air grew still, and the warm, smooth skin of the witch beneath her grew rough and barren.

 

“Her time is up.” 

Myrtle’s voice pierced this bone aching silence as a new wave of sobs wracked Cordelia’s body. The sudden lack of weight on her lap and the smell of decay clinging to the air below her told her what her eyes couldn’t. She was gone. Misty had failed. Cordelia wailed as she collapsed onto the part of the rug where Misty once was, begging anybody, anything that she could to bring back her dear friend. She could feel gloved arms surround her in an embrace, the Chanel perfume quieting her senses as she let all the tension built up during this trial out in Myrtle’s arms. The redhead said nothing, her comfort expressing all her shared sorrow and disappointment that the necromancer turned out not to be Supreme material.

 

The next day without Misty Day hadn't been any easier. Even though Cordelia was crowned the new Supreme, and had regained her eyesight, she had still lost a few girls in the process. Madison, Zoe, and Misty were the victims of the Seven Wonders, their deaths all completely preventable in Cordelia's eyes. If she had been a little better at teaching the girls some discipline while using their powers, Zoe wouldn't have been impaled on the fence of Miss Robichaux's. If she had cared enough to sort out the conflicts between her girls, Madison would have revived Zoe and would not have been throttled by Kyle. Cordelia was at least fortunate enough to revive Zoe.

 

Finally, there was Misty. Misty didn't want power. Misty didn't want to be the Supreme, but Cordelia just had to force her to take the challenge. There were little things in the tests prior that could have told her that Misty didn't want to be the next leader of the coven. The way her scattered thoughts of doubt hit Cordelia’s mind when the blonde struggled to will the candle towards her, the childlike joy that came over her when she successfully used Concilium to make Queenie hit herself, the way she held her breath before she uttered the single word that sealed her fate. All of these told Cordelia what Misty had told her for weeks prior. Misty didn’t want to be an all-powerful witch. Misty didn’t want the immense responsibility that Supremacy would bring. 

 

After almost a few months of distractions with the transfer of power and new students enrolling in Robichaux’s, Cordelia finally brought herself to sort through Misty’s things. This time she was alone. The girls were all in bed, and Myrtle was burned to a crisp just a few weeks prior, leaving nobody there to hold her hand as she opened up the cardboard box of possessions left by the swamp witch. Tracing the messy scrawl of  _ Misty’s Stuff  _ in Sharpie on the box, Cordelia resolved to open it up.

 

Inside the box was three records, a pile of shawls, a book on Herbalism, and a small journal. All the rest had either been thrown out or moved to Cordelia’s room already, and this last box was one whose contents Misty had been fiercely protective of. It had been hidden in the back of her and Queenie’s closet, shoved into a corner underneath all of Queenie’s black clothing. 

Cordelia flipped through the vinyl, finding all of them to either be Fleetwood Mac or Stevie Nicks Greatest Hits Compilations. She shook her head at Misty’s endearing predictability, her grin growing larger as she opened up Misty’s book of herbalism to see it overgrown with a thicket of notes scrawled messily in dark green ink. The note on Basil caught her eyes first.

_ Miss Delia said that it means protection, prosperity and that it can be used in love potions. _

Cordelia’s eyes lit up as she saw  _ Miss Cordelia  _ this, and  _ Miss Delia  _ that. The necromancer was faithful to her guidance after all. Cordelia carefully set the book down and took a shawl out of the small pile in the middle of the box. It was a light mint green with fringe and black leaves embroidered on the back of it. Cordelia buried her face into it, and she could almost feel Misty near her with the amount of emotional resonance the garment carried. She inhaled, and the smell of Misty consumed her. Her heart began to beat fast as she began to have a vision of the past...


	2. Visions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cordelia’s super bi, but damn she isn’t ready to admit it yet

_ “Hey, can I try the incantation this time?” _

 

_ Cordelia looked up from spreading the green muck at the roots of the plant, smiling widely at the younger woman.  _

 

_ “Go for it.” The older witch nodded enthusiastically as Misty turned to grab the paper with the invocation on it. Misty looked back and forth from the plant to the piece of aged parchment she shakily clutched in her hand. The initial run of the incantation had no effect on the plant, and Misty cocked her head to the side like a puppy, and Cordelia spoke up. _

 

_ “Stronger intent!” Cordelia admonished encouragingly, smiling up at Misty and nodding at her as if prompting her to go again. _

 

_ “Lamak Lamek Bakalios, Kabahagi Sabalios...Barios… Her wild grin grew wider as her words echoed through the greenhouse, bringing her plant to shake and renew itself. Purple flowers budded off of it as she finished the incantation, and she shook her head in proud disbelief. _

 

_ “Damn, that is so cool!” She exclaimed, her eyes squeezed shut in a prideful grin that lit up her face. _

 

_ Cordelia laughed along with her, and Misty held up her hands for a high five. The older woman obliged her, and offered her hands to the necromancer. Misty took them and Cordelia pulled her close, their faces just inches from each other.  _

 

_ “We make a great team” Cordelia grinned widely as their eyes met, blue and brown to sky blue. _

_ Misty nodded sagely as she took a step back, turning her attention back at the plant as her cheeks flushed. She held her breath in a familiar, hesitant way. _

Tears fell from Cordelia’s eyes as she came back to reality. She had missed Misty so much, she had nearly forgotten how expressive her eyes were, or the absent-minded half singing she would do when she listened to music she knew. She swallowed down the rest of her sobbing and moved through the shawls, taking them out and folding them neatly before putting them back into the box. When she pulled a particularly large black shawl out of the box, something fell out of it. Cordelia bent down to pick it up. It was a photograph, the kind you would get out of those modern polaroids that every basic teenage girl owned. The photo was of Misty. She wore a top hat and Stevie’s shawl, and was biting into a kebab, the cemetery behind them. It was simply captioned _ Swampy,  _ and Cordelia let out a wet chuckle as tears began to well up in her eyes. She shook her head again to deny herself the emotional release, and pocketed the polaroid before putting all of Misty’s things back in the box. She walked into her room with the box, and put it high on a shelf in her closet. She sighed half heartedly to nobody in particular, before getting herself ready for bed.

 

_ “Dee, are ya awake?”  _

 

_ The high Cajun drawl echoed through Cordelia’s head as the Supreme blinked lightly, squinting at the overabundant sunlight peeking through their curtains as she shifted in bed to face Misty.  _

 

_ “I am now,” She smirked, her eyes half lidded. Misty gave out a small chortle before pulling Cordelia closer to her in bed. Cordelia melted into the contact, and gave the Cajun a small peck on the lips. _

 

_ “Damn, I definitely don’t need no coffee when that wakes me up just fine, ‘Delia.” Misty grinned widely, her eyes sparkling as she gave Cordelia more than just a chaste peck on the lips, the swamp witch’s calloused hands moving down her body to rest on her hips. Cordelia leaned into the kiss, the beginnings of a moan bubbling up from her throat, when approaching footsteps made the pair fly apart from each other quickly. The door opened, and Rhiannon leapt onto the bed with great struggle, the bed being taller than the three year old girl. She looked up at her mothers, her eyes shining a deep chocolate. She sat in the space between the two women, and they enveloped her in a minor cuddle pile. Cordelia smoothed down the little girl’s wild blonde hair, and they just laid there for a bit, taking in the morning light. _

 

_ “I’m real hungry, Dee. We should take Rhi down and see if Zoe made any pancakes,” Misty half whispered liltingly, still half asleep. _

 

_ Cordelia sighed contentedly and turned to look at Misty. She leaned forward to give a quick kiss to the Cajun’s neck, lingering there for only a second before sitting up. _

 

_ “Pancakes sound good. I love you Mist.” _

 

Cordelia’s eyes snapped open to complete darkness and an empty bed. There was no lazy morning, no half asleep wife, no toddler crawling into bed. There was nothing, and the Supreme felt hollow, as if the dream had opened up an unfillable chasm in her soul, and only the vague memory of an impossible dream could venture to fill it. She sat up in bed and turned on her bedside lamp, illuminating the delicate polaroid on the top of the bedside table. She willed it towards her, and it drifted lightly into her palm. She could almost feel her soul mend a little when looking at the expression of innocent food fueled joy filling her blue eyes. She couldn’t deny that she missed the necromancer, and some nights she lay awake staring at her ceiling, blaming herself for the young woman’s death. How else could she cope if she didn’t carry some kind of blame? She dismissed this vacuous hole in her chest as all the regrets and blame she carried with her into her Supremacy, the one thing that “glowing and radiant health” as Myrtle called it, couldn’t help. 

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed, please leave Kudos and Comments, I thrive on positive attention! If you wanna request fanfic, hit me up @ahs-fanfic-wizard


	3. Tear Tracks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW for mild violence

There were two solid weeks of this soul-crushing cycle. Cordelia would have a dream about Misty, wake up, and lay awake in her bed, going over the events of that fateful day that she was declared Supreme. After over two weeks, that once wonderful day in the blonde’s memory was now overwhelmingly tainted by her failures. Her failure to prevent discord between the girls, her failure to teach and prepare her students well enough for the Seven Wonders, and her failure to pick up on Misty’s hesitance. These dreams that she had been having about Misty ranged from that domestic dream she had the first night, to violent nightmares where she lost control of her power and accidentally murdered the young necromancer. Those nights she woke up screaming, tears streaming down her cheeks. 

 

The first night that had happened, Cordelia laid there clutching her pillow like a child, sobbing into the soft surface as she attempted to calm down. She looked up when a gentle knock sounded on her bedroom door. She sat up in bed and quickly wiped the tears off her face before addressing the visitor.

 

“It’s late, who is it?” Cordelia called out towards the door, trying really hard to assume a microcosm of control in her voice. 

 

“Miss Goode, we heard screaming. Is someone in there with you?” Kyle’s voice was muffled from behind the door, but the older witch could tell that he was incredibly worried.

 

“Miss Cordelia, we need to make sure you’re alright, you woke up half the house.” Zoe’s voice was more annoyed than usual, but Cordelia could almost feel her concern.

 

Cordelia swallowed down the tears threatening to spill over, and willed the door open. Zoe and Kyle traipsed in. Kyle had his flashlight cautiously drawn, ready to take down any potential threat to the Supreme. Zoe rushed to Cordelia’s side, hesitating for a moment to take in the sight of her Supreme. Even in the dim light from Cordelia’s bedside, Zoe could see the faint puffiness around the older witch’s eyes, the new tear tracks forming along her unevenly colored cheeks.

 

“Are you alright? Have you been...crying?” All the annoyance had dripped out of Zoe’s voice, sinking it into only a concerned whisper as the young witch wrenched the pillow out of Cordelia’s white-knuckled grasp and laid it back in its spot. Before Cordelia could protest, Zoe got up on the bed and turned to the blonde. 

 

“Is it alright if I touch you? Madison used to have these panic...things and she got so scared when I would tou-” Zoe was interrupted when Cordelia suddenly clung to her, sobbing quietly, but shuddering violently on her shoulder. Zoe was shocked by the emotionally decimated state of her Supreme, but recovered quickly, squeezing the crying woman in a tight embrace. Kyle came out of her bathroom and turned his flashlight off, setting it on Cordelia’s bedside table next to the polaroid. His curiosity got the best of him, and he picked it up, looking at it intently.

 

“Is...Is that Misty?”

 

Cordelia’s head shot up from its perch on Zoe’s shoulder, and Kyle flew back from the picture like it was an explosive. Kyle’s back slammed against the wall, and he sat there, slumped over. 

 

“Oh my god, Kyle!” Zoe moved from the older woman’s embrace and dove down to the floor to attend to her boyfriend, while Cordelia got up and bent down to retrieve the fallen polaroid. She took a look at it again, her breathing grounded by this image of her favorite necromancer in the presence of good food. She eased down on the silken sheets of her bed, her face now twisted in a hesitant smile. Cordelia was snapped out of her fixation on the Polaroid by the shouting of her name.

 

“Cordelia!” Zoe’s brows were furrowed, an expression of indignant anger as she tried rousing a passed out Kyle. Cordelia calmly got up from the bed and gently laid the photo on the wrinkled pillowcase, before striding over to Kyle. She sunk to his eye level and held his head up by his chin with her hand. She took a deep breath. Her dark eyes began to glow amber in the dim light.

 

_ “Et erit excitare _ ” Cordelia intoned in Latin, stepping back when the young man shuddered awake, rubbing the back of his head in pain and confusion.

 

Zoe pounced on him, capturing the disoriented man in a hurried hug. 

 

“Wha’ happened?” He groaned out. “I was lookin’ at that photo and then I… just got pushed back, n’ everything went dark.”

 

“That photo is one of the only things I have left of her. Touch it again, and you’ll feel a lot worse, Mr. Spencer.”

 

Both the servant and witch looked up at Cordelia, her face shadowed in a stern expression as she looked down on them.

 

Zoe’s concern for her boyfriend turned to disappointed resentment for her Supreme. How could she...just hurt Kyle like that? For looking at a photo of Myrtle? She was certain there were other photos of the fashionable witch out in the world. Zoe took a beat to glare at the blonde witch before helping up Kyle and leading him out of the room. The door slammed behind her. There were girls anxiously waiting for news of the Supreme in the hallway. 

 

“Hey, Ms. Benson, is Miss Goode okay?”

 

“Yeah, did you find out what’s wrong?”

 

All the girls came towards them, questions bubbling from their anxious lips. Zoe turned towards them, confusing clouding her delicate face.

 

“She’s fine, I think. Just a nightmare.” 

 

The girls shuffled off to bed, some of them relieved, others disappointed, as Zoe helped Kyle into their bed.

  
When Zoe slipped below the covers, she couldn't help but stare at the ceiling. Cordelia had obviously been hurting ever since Myrtle’s death, but how could she  _ hurt _ Kyle like that? She had always prided herself on being a way gentler Supreme on her mother, but injuring a servant over a photo was a Fiona-esque action. She turned over towards Kyle, meeting his eyes as she stroked his cheek and jaw affectionately.

 

“Are you okay? You hit that wall pretty hard. Want me to kiss it better?” She spoke quietly, her voice dropping to an alto growl as she quirked her brows at him. He chuckled, and turned away, an easy smile forming on his boyish face. 

 

“That’s a tempting offer, Z. But I’m really concerned about Miss Goode. Is she alright? I couldn’t find anyone in her room to hurt her, but that was her scream.” His smile dropped off his face.

 

“She mentally  _ drop kicked  _ you, and you’re worried about her?” Zoe quietly admonished as Kyle looked back at her, shocked at his girlfriend’s demeanor.

 

“She’s hurting. I know what that’s like, and I don't really blame her. She lost someone really important to her, and I messed with her stuff. It’s my fault.” He shrugged, smoothing back his messy locks as he slightly sat up in bed.

 

“Doesn’t give her the right to launch you. I don’t get what’s so important about the photo anyway, there are so many photos of Myrtle around Robichaux’s anyway…” Zoe trailed off, looking at her boyfriend. Kyle shook his head.

 

“The photo wasn’t of Ms. Snow.” He said uneasily.

“It wasn’t? Who was it, then?” Zoe sat up as well, inquiry playing on her lips. Kyle sighed, his heart sinking slightly.

 

“It was Misty.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you loved this chapter, leave me some kudos and comments. I thrive for comments, and I promise to regularly update.


End file.
